Thursday, October 17, 2013

A Classroom Strategy- Ways for Students to Keep Track of Books They Have Read

Students in my 4th grade classes are reading like crazy. It is the expectation that students read at least 40 books this school year (ala Donalyn Miller). I feel that it is important for students to see their reading progress so they are keeping track of the books they have read in several ways. One way is by using Biblionasium.com. This is a kid-friendly social reading website. Students can keep track of books they are reading, have read, and want to read. They can rate books and recommend them to each other. They also keep track on a genre sheet as they are asked to read from a wide variety of genre. Click here to view the sheet I use. I think you can access and edit it with the link.

Finally, they keep track in the hallway. In previous years I have had the students complete a paper book spine and we created "stacks" in the hall. While the students loved seeing their stacks grow, this system was cumbersome for 45-50 students. It also took up a ton of wall space and used a lot of paper. I had to use volunteers to tape them to the wall and then they were torn down and recycled at the end of the year.

This year we are using a new "system" to track the number of books we read. Each student has a metal book ring to which he or she adds a new 2"x 3"card with the title of each new book read. Then when they read more books, they move their ring to the appropriate number. Once established, this system is quite easy. Now my biggest problem is making sure we don't run out of cards. At the end of the year, they will take them home as a keepsake of their 4th grade reading.

Right now we have up to 25 books on the board. As needed I will add higher numbers to the bottom half of the board and make room by raising some rings higher on the board. Keeping track of all the books they have read, helps students to see growth and helps fuel their motivation to read. I would love to hear about how others have students keep track of their reading. Leave a comment and share!